Newsletters March 2009

March 2009

Welcome to our first Newsletter of 2009. This newsletter is coming to you quite late in this quarter, in order to coincide with Release 2009a from The MathWorks. Eager users may have already downloaded their software; others who are current on Software Maintenance will receive theirs shortly.

Release 2009a is the focus of this newsletter: We will briefly touch on new products, highlight selected new features, and point you to more information. Then we will look at two free learning resources provided by The MathWorks: Online MATLAB and Simulink tutorials aimed specifically at students. Also, new to 2009 is the introduction of more specialised public events from OPTI-NUM solutions.

As always, you will find information on our upcoming public seminars, public training courses, and webinars.

We wish you a fantastic 2009.
The OPTI-NUM solutions team. 

 

 

Release 2009a from The MathWorks

Release 2009a (R2009a) is the first release of The MathWorks products in 2009. This release, introduced on 6 March 2009, includes two new products, and updates and bug fixes to 91 other products in The MathWorks product family.

MATLAB product family enhancements include expanded multicore support, now including fft functions. New to the MATLAB product family is the Vehicle Network Toolbox, for communicating with in-vehicle networks using CAN protocol. Parallel Computing Toolbox has expanded supports for up to 8 cores on your desktop (without utilising MATLAB Distributed Computing Server). R2009a introduces native support for .NET classes in MATLAB. Surface fitting is an enhancement to Curve Fitting Toolbox, while Symbolic Math Toolbox now supports direct generation of Simulink blocks.

Speaking of Simulink, R2009a now provides the ability to save, restore and restart simulation states (as well as model states) in Simulink and Stateflow. This allows simulations to be stopped and then continued with no loss of fidelity. New to the Simulink product family is Simulink Design Optimization, which combines the features found previously in Simulink Parameter Estimation and Simulink Response Optimization, and now provides built-in support for computing solutions in parallel using Parallel Computing Toolbox.

For more detailed information on the latest release from The MathWorks, see the latest features page on The MathWorks web site.

Those customers who are current on Software Maintenance can expect to receive your DVDs in the next few weeks.

MATLAB and Simulink Tutorials

The MathWorks has introduced two tutorials aimed at students wishing to use MATLAB and Simulink as part of their learning resources. These self-paced tutorials, broken into short (average 10 minutes) modules, are designed to provide an interactive learning experience for students. Modules include question and answer sections and “Try It” sections to help students with self-assessment of their knowledge.

To register for these tutorials, and to find out more information on these tutorials, visit the Tutorials page in the Student Center. For lecturers, this is a great resource to provide to students at the beginning of the year so that they can learn MATLAB and Simulink at their own pace. Lecturers should also explore the Curriculum Exchange to see how to incorporate MATLAB and Simulink into your teaching.

Remember that these tutorials are firmly aimed at students wishing to get an introduction to MATLAB and Simulink so that they can sue these products to reinforce their academic learning. Commercial MATLAB users, academic researchers and lecturers are strongly encouraged to attend one of our training courses to get personalised training from an OPTI-NUM solutions applications engineer.

Seminars, Master Classes and Workshops: What’s The Difference?

This year will see OPTI-NUM solutions diversifying customer events, so that we provide events specifically for new users and events for existing users wishing to learn about new features and technologies using MATLAB and Simulink. Events will be offered in three different styles, described below.

Seminars are introductory events aimed at new and potential users of The MathWorks product family. Typically covering a broad spectrum of technical ideas, seminars are ideal for users and prospective users wishing to get an overview of the capabilities of MATLAB, Simulink and associated products.

Master Classes provide a more focussed topic, typically covering one aspect of MATLAB or Simulink in more detail than a seminar could. Master Classes are typically aimed at existing users of the tools, looking to deepen their understanding of a particular aspect of using MATLAB or Simulink, and so no introduction to MATLAB or Simulink is provided. Master Classes tend to be extremely technical in nature, owing to the focus on a specific topic.

Workshops are hands-on sessions where users and prospective users can come and work with a new tool, idea or concept Attendees are guided through a specific hands-on example by an Applications Engineer. Workshops typically cater for up to 10 people, so book early if you are interested in a workshop! Also note that workshops do not replace training; instead, they provide a solid hands-on overview of a topic or feature of MATLAB and Simulink.

With this wide array of events offered by OPTI-NUM solutions, we look forward to seeing you at one of our events in the near future.

Featured User Story

Johns Hopkins University Establishes Virtual Lab for Wireless Communications with Simulink

How can you deepen understanding for students through hands-on experience, without the expense of a physical laboratory? Dr Lee Edwards from Johns Hopkins University used Simulink to enable students to learn wireless communications systems theory using hands-on practical experience.
According to Dr Edwards, “Often when you set up labs for demonstrations, they are canned and predictable. What we wanted is for the students to develop enough understanding and interest to explore on their own.”
Read the full user story.

View featured user stories.

Events

Upcoming Training Courses

As noted in our recent training update notification, this year we have focused our scheduled courses on enabling new and existing users to gain the most from their investment in The MathWorks products. You will see only two courses scheduled regularly throughout the year:

• “MATLAB Fundamentals” is perfect for enabling new and existing users to quickly become more productive with MATLAB.
•  “Simulink for System and Algorithm Modelling” will teach you all you need to know about Simulink to become a proficient and capable modelling and simulation practitioner.

The next scheduled MATLAB and Simulink training courses can be found here.

Should you wish to participate in any of the other courses we offer (see the full list of courses for details) or if you would like us to present any of our courses to you and at least 3 other colleagues, contact us to negotiate dates and discuss costs and venues.

Upcoming Seminars

This month sees two events: An introductory “Data Analysis with MATLAB for Excel Users” seminar (aimed at new and prospective users of MATLAB) and a Master Class on “Object-Oriented Programming with MATLAB”, aimed at existing users and being held in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

For a list of more events, see our events page.

Upcoming Webinars

07 September 2010	Speeding Up MATLAB Applications
09 September 2010	Image Acquisition and Processing Using GigE Vision Cameras with MATLAB
14 September 2010	Analyze, Model and Simulate Energy Risk with MATLAB – a SAP Integration at RWE